Escape to the Country

We seem to be drawn, these days, to soundtracks to profane rituals. After Father Murhpy’s Requiem a few weeks back, today we enter the fog clad clearing with Aaron Moore and Erick K. Skodvin.

Put together over six years, Moore and Skodvin’s music is deeply, deeply atmospheric. The sort of evocative sound that rips you from the horrors of this reality and, particularly in the case of today’s track Furland, place you in an equally horrific alternative.

Furland kicks things off with that tom-tom drum rolling around hour head sounds that avant-garde experimental cinema loved so much. Or at least the memory we have of avant-garde cinema. Disorientating, mysterious; a prelude to something fascinating yet not yet comprehendible.

Then the chanting starts, the chanting and the off key strings. And we know, in some horrific way, that we’re home. Bathed in the unease of it all. As if complicit with the nightmare, surrendering to it as it envelopes you. Over and over, the scratchy tape delayed noise swirling around your head until, a light.

towards the end of Furland we’re treated to some quite beautiful vocal harmonies and an almost Arthur Russel-esque moment of violin repetition. Minor key waves of string instruments notwithstanding, it’s a rather upbeat way to end the track. Which, in its own way is disturbing itself.